


nowhere left to go

by foxwatson



Category: Inglourious Basterds (2009)
Genre: Fix-It, Flashbacks, M/M, a bunch of my own ideas about aldo's scar or how they both know the other speaks italian, just. so much character study, no i cannot explain why omar did not live he just didn't, yes this is a donny lived fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-25
Updated: 2020-08-25
Packaged: 2021-03-07 01:41:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,462
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26108866
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foxwatson/pseuds/foxwatson
Summary: When Donny Donowitz wakes up in a French hospital, the war is over. Word in the papers, though, is that Lieutenant Raine and Utivich are still alive - and here’s Donny, still in fucking France, with no idea how to get word to either of them.
Relationships: Donny Donowitz/Aldo Raine
Comments: 1
Kudos: 18





	nowhere left to go

**Author's Note:**

> title credit to orville peck's no glory in the west which though clearly not intended for this purpose does remind me of the basterds.

When Donny Donowitz wakes up in a French hospital, the war is over.

He only finds out cause the nurses tell him. There’s a couple that speak English, thank fucking shit, and they seem to like him, so they tell him in excited tones about how the Americans won the war. How everybody in the operation is gonna get a Congressional Medal of Honor, and all the most important German officers died in the theater that night.

Donny has no fucking clue how to tell anybody he was part of the operation. Somebody must know they got him out of that theater, half his body covered in third degree burns and a broken leg to boot - but then, if he hadn’t ditched the dynamite, he’d have lost the leg.

Then again, the whole fucking point of the thing was to kill Hitler and probably die trying. Donny never thought he’d wake up. He never thought any of them would.

Word in the papers, though, is that Lieutenant Raine and Utivich are still alive - and here’s Donny, still in fucking France, with no idea how to get word to them.

In between the long periods where he just passes the fuck out, every once in a while when he cracks jokes with the nurses he asks if he can get to a telephone or send a telegram or something, but everyone’s so goddamn busy all the time he never gets an answer. The hospital’s a mess, of course, in the wake of the theater fire and the end of the war.

So Donny’s alive and a fucking mess in a French hospital - and he just waits. There’s nothing else to do.

* * *

When he was growing up, Donny had a tendency to get in the kind of fights that guys didn’t walk away from. The funny thing was, before he got big, Donny had a tendency to be the one getting the shit beaten out of him.

He was a loudmouth punk and a scrawny little shit and he started shit he couldn’t finish. He got the shit kicked out of him more than once, whether it was for being Jewish or for being queer or for whatever the fuck else they could come up with that would give them an excuse to try and break his ribs again.

The funny thing was even he didn’t know he was queer when he was still scrawny. All he thought about was baseball - he didn’t stop to wonder why, and he didn’t think he thought about it any different than all the other fuckers who liked it as much as he did.

As he got older he realized the other guys weren’t checking out the players, but as far as Donny was concerned that was their fucking loss. Besides - by that time, Donny knew how to win a fucking fight, and he fought dirty.

He’d come home every other weekend with bloody or bruised knuckles, with a mouthful of blood that wasn’t his because he had a tendency to bite and to kick and to do the shit the other guy was too much of a pussy to do. As far as Donny was concerned, there weren’t any fucking rules when some guy tried to beat the shit out of you - the rules were do whatever it takes or fucking die.

Donny never killed anybody though, unless they tried to kill him first. And even then - he didn’t really kill any guys before the war. Not on purpose. There might have been a guy that got it so bad in a fight he didn’t make it, but if that was the case, Donny never knew. He kicked the shit out of the guy and he left too quick to find out.

His mother always used to worry, when he came home all bloody and bruised. He’d promise her he wouldn’t get in any trouble - and he never did. He worked hard to keep his promise.

Then, in some of the best news of Donny’s fucking life, America decided to get in the war. Nothing about the war was good news - it was awful shit day in and day out, people dying left and right, and worse - but Donny had long since missed his shot at professional baseball, and the war gave him a purpose and a passion and something to fucking do.

He signed up to kill the fucking Nazi bastards - because they would have killed him if they got the chance. He’d sit at home and read newspaper headlines and think about it all the time anyways, so when everybody wanted him to do it, he was first in fucking line to sign up.

* * *

As things around the hospital start to calm down after a few weeks, Donny’s finally able to find out that he’s been in and out of sleep for a couple of months.

Months, he’s been laying around recovering and probably nobody even knows if he’s fucking dead or alive. He finally just begs the nurse for a way to send word to anybody - a letter or a phone call, any fucking thing they can offer him.

They can’t get him to a phone in the hospital while he’s still so fucked up, or so they say in not so many words, so his options are letter or telegram. He could try to send a telegram to the main American office in the States or in France, but that’s not who he wants to get to. He needs to try and get in touch with either the Lieutenant or Utivich, who can tell him what he should actually do, who will actually care if he’s dead or alive.

He should also probably write to his mother.

He asks for some paper and a couple of envelopes, and he does his best.

* * *

Donny met Aldo Raine while the Basterds were still just an idea, and Aldo was still just a Corporal.

They didn’t have much in common on the ground level. Aldo didn’t give a shit about baseball, and Donny didn’t know shit about Tennessee or moonshine or half the shit Aldo’d spent his whole life around.

What they did have in common was a passionate fucking hatred of Nazis - not that Donny had any idea the first night they really spoke to each other.

“You telling me you didn’t sign up just to defend the country, Donowitz?” Aldo asked one night when they were both halfway drunk, killing time in training before they got shipped overseas. Neither of them were too popular, Aldo probably because he scared the shit out of everybody with sense, Donny for maybe the same reason.

“Fuck no, I signed up to kill fucking Nazis,” Donny told him. “Guess that’s probably not why most people are here-”

“Heard that about you. Heard people say that, that that’s what you’d say if anybody ever asked. I admire that kind of honesty and passion, Donowitz.”

Donny snorted and threw back the rest of his drink. “Yeah, pull the other one. I know everyone here talks shit. Not that I care.”

“I have an idea I think you might be interested in - and I’m hoping I can get the Special Forces interested, too. That is, if you’re serious about killing Nazis.”

“Never been more serious in my goddamn life.”

That was the first time he’d seen Aldo Raine smile - really smile. It was all fucking downhill from there.

* * *

The letter isn’t anything special. He addresses it to Aldo in Tennessee as best he can, and all he can do is hope for the best. He can’t even remember where Utivich is from, who he might be living with - but he knows the city where Aldo grew up, and that’s gotta be worth something.

He knows it’ll take a while to get there, longer if Aldo isn’t there. Maybe it’ll never get there, and even if it does, maybe Aldo will never see it or never show up - but the nurses say that with all the burn scars, Donny’s still got a pretty long recovery ahead, another month or two in the hospital at the very least, so he’s got the time to wait around and nobody else to wait with.

His mother writes back first. Makes sense. She’s right on the east coast, Donny had her direct address and all. She tells him he ought to call, and he writes back to say he will as soon as he can walk. She, of course, had been told he was dead and killed in action, and he’s glad to know that she’s relieved to hear from him.

Unfortunate that she already had to sit shiva, but he can’t go back and change any of it.

Funny part is, even if he can get a long distance call through to his mother, just like with the letter he wouldn’t have a fucking clue where to start with how to get in touch with Lieutenant Raine. Just call the army office and hope?

It’s more comforting than Donny really thought of, though, that he never had to wonder if Aldo was dead for more than a minute or two. He thought at first maybe he was the only one that made it out, but when those nurses told him about the job they pulled off and the men getting the medals, Donny got to be sure Aldo made it out, too.

It’s good to know, even if Donny gets forgotten in the history books and just goes home to his mother, and he can never get back in touch with the other Basterds - it’s good to know that Aldo’s alright and probably happy, wherever he is.

That and being the man that killed Hitler is really all Donny could ask for.

* * *

Most of the time with the Basterds, they were all in each other’s pockets. No man left behind, no one too far out of sight, somebody always on night watch. They all had permanent fucking targets on their back and they took them happily because of all the good that came with it - but it meant there wasn’t a lot of down time. Wasn’t much drinking or relaxing - there was moving and there was finding Nazis and there was killing them, and that was it.

If they were lucky, they got to sleep and clean off somewhere, and if they were really lucky they got a hot meal.

There were exceptions, though. The thing about the Basterds was as much as Aldo meant all the shit he said about the scalps - there also wasn’t a single man among them who wanted to stop at a hundred Nazis. Not all of them hit it, but more than one of them did, and Aldo always offered them the opportunity to go home - and not one of them ever took it.

Instead, though, for just a night, Aldo’d steer them all out of the way of the mission. He and Donny would find some place with a barn or a whole abandoned house - somewhere with four walls and a roof and some chairs and maybe even a bed or two, and they’d set up traps so everyone could take it easy for just a night.

Sometimes they’d find a bottle of whiskey or wine or vodka, or sometimes somebody had one stashed, and they’d all split it and have a little to drink.

The night Donny remembers best though was the night they found a house somebody left in a hurry. There were a few different beds, there was water enough for everybody, and a whole fucking cellar full of wine that had just been left there. It didn’t mean anything good for whoever’d been there before them, but it was hard to think of that when they were all so happy to have a night in the lap of fucking luxury.

Donny had cleaned himself up, and taken a whole bottle of wine that he had with dinner. They all got drunk, really, except maybe Lieutenant Raine - but even Aldo hadn’t been sober.

Everybody got settled in for the night, though, and even knowing the traps were outside, Donny just couldn’t settle in to sleep. He was so used to late night watch and sleeping with one eye open that he just couldn’t fucking relax.

He stepped outside for some air - and he nearly ran face-first into Aldo.

“Shit! You scared the shit outta me-”

“You know I hear that’s pretty tough to do,” Aldo said with half a smile.

“Not right now,” Donny said, leaning back against the wall of the house. He felt a little bad for being so loud at first - but it didn’t sound like he’d woken anybody out of their drunken stupor, so he just tried to be a little quieter from then on. “You can’t sleep either?”

“Figure I may as well keep watch.”

“I had the same idea. I guess we could keep shifts.”

“You can just keep me company for now.”

Donny shrugged. “Don’t see why not.”

There was quiet for a minute or two - but Donny was never good at being quiet.

“There’s something I always wanted to ask you - you think you’re drunk enough you won’t hit me if I ask?”

Aldo scoffed. “Might as well ask me and find out.”

“That scar on your neck - you had it when we met. How’d you get it?”

It was obvious the question was a surprise from the look on Aldo’s face. He smiled a little. “It ain’t a pretty story, but I don’t object to telling it.” Glancing down, Aldo pulled his tin from his pocket, and took a pinch of his snuff. “Got it back home, before the war ever started. Bunch of fuckers cut my throat and left me for dead, but they didn’t know enough to get the job done.” He looked back down, took another pinch of his snuff, and then put his tin away. “I always told everybody it was on account of a bootlegging disagreement.”

“But it wasn’t?”

Aldo shook his head, just once, his gaze fixed on the horizon. “No, it was not.”

Donny knew enough about that. Even if it wasn’t exactly the same as the shit that had gotten him into fights - nothing had to be true for a man to try and kill you for it. Just the idea was enough. If it was true or not didn’t matter to most of them - but if they could find out it was true, it got worse. Donny had learned that one the hard way. 

“I used to have guys beat the shit outta me back home,” Donny offered up. “I used to beat ‘em up so bad - I think maybe I killed one of them once. I don’t know. I never heard anything, it never came back to me, you know. Your guys get away with it?”

“I wouldn’t say that,” Aldo told him. He finally glanced over, met Donny’s eyes and looked away again. “It was easier for the most part to let them think I stayed dead, but I heard they got what was coming to ‘em, later on. Hunting accidents, that sort of thing.”

Humming, Donny sat down on the ground and took a slug off his bottle of wine - now very nearly empty. “I don’t blame you. World’s better off without ‘em.”

Slowly, Aldo sat down, too. “Donowitz - you think you’re drunk enough you won’t remember any of this?”

Donny had never blacked out in his life. He’d gotten fall-down drunk and only been a little fuzzy around the edges. He shrugged. “I can pretend.”

Aldo laughed at that - really laughed, which usually only happened when Nazi killing was involved. “As always, Donny, I admire the dedication.”

It was the first time Aldo ever called him by his first name to his face. “It’s gotten me this far.”

As he turned his head, Donny met Aldo’s eyes again. Aldo squinted at him a little - like he was looking for something, trying to figure something out. “If you take offense to this I assume you won’t hit me neither.”

Donny shook his head. “I’m not about to try and start a fight with you, Lieutenant.”

Aldo laughed, one short, sharp sound. “Alright. Fair’s fair. You queer, Donowitz?”

It was unexpected - unexpected enough that Donny’s eyebrows shot up. “I’d say it depends on why you’re asking, but maybe I get enough of that from you asking if I’ll forget it first. Not that I’m ashamed of it or nothing as much as I just don’t like to tell anybody that doesn’t really want to know.”

“Well, you wouldn’t be the only one. There’s Stiglitz, too, that’s why he took up with us, I think. Utivich. Probably a couple more.

“So you’re just - asking.”

“While we’re out here. And you’ve so kindly agreed to forget anything that might come to pass.”

“Then yeah. I am.” It was the frankest admission of his sexuality Donny had ever made aloud. In bars back home, you didn’t really talk about it. You got on your knees for some guy in an alleyway, you both knew why you were there. It was mostly in the way you looked at each other in a club - and Donny didn’t really have a history of finding the kind of guy who wanted to talk about it, either.

“Then that makes two of us.” Aldo’s response was matter of fact, without a hint of self-consciousness or any kind of nervous quiver. Steady, just like he always was. Donny figured that was where the conversation had been leading - but it didn’t make it any less of a surprise by the end. Obviously Aldo was fucking gorgeous - but maybe that was why Donny had never really let himself speculate much beyond that, with Aldo being his officer and all.

Donny nodded, uncertain of how else to respond.

Aldo shifted closer, nudged his shoulder against Donny’s. “You sure everybody else was asleep in there?”

“Yeah, they were when I came out here.”

With a nod, Aldo turned again to face Donny. After a moment, Donny turned, and they locked eyes. In that moment, as Aldo looked at him, Donny knew exactly what was about to happen - but he still didn’t fucking believe it until Aldo kissed him.

It was a thorough, precise kind of kiss - somehow not rushed or desperate, despite the fact that Donny knew and felt that neither of them had gotten any action in at least a year.

“Lieutenant?” Donny said quietly when they parted, briefly.

“Think you can probably call me Aldo at this point, Donny.”

“Right - Aldo - maybe we ought to head out to the barn just in case?”

“That’s the kind of thinking that made you a Sergeant, Donowitz.”

Aldo stood up and pulled Donny with him, and the two of them rushed out to the barn, avoiding their own traps along the way.

Once they were out there, they still didn’t fully undress or take their time - they tumbled into a pile of hay like a couple of country teenagers and only managed to get their pants undone. Donny kept his face pressed against Aldo’s neck and kept himself quiet while he and Aldo both got their hands around each other. They both got off, but it was rushed and desperate and felt more like they’d snuck off in the woods with everyone still around, just because it had been so long for both of them.

When it was finished, they lay side by side in the hay. Donny started to really feel where some of it was poking him in the back once he wasn’t distracted anymore by Aldo’s hands or his mouth.

“What’s your plan for after the war, Donny? Assuming any of us make it back.” Aldo asked, almost a mumble in the open air of the barn.

“Probably just go home to my Ma. Not much else to do. Think I missed my chance at pro baseball already.”

Aldo scoffed.

Donny paused for a moment, waited. Then he asked. “How about you?”

“Got me a place in Tennessee, may as well go back to it. Stay the fuck out of anything else, long as we get all these Nazis killed now and we don’t have to try it again.”

“You got your own place?” Donny probably could have tried to live on his own - but Boston was expensive, and his gave nearly all of his own money to his mother. He always had. Not because she asked - but because they were all they had.

“Moonshine money was good for just about one thing.”

If they talked much beyond that, it wasn’t anything worth remembering. They’d cleaned themselves up again, gone back to the house, and kept watch in shifts. It was the first time they fucked around - and Donny never forgot it, and he didn’t even really pretend to. Not to Aldo, anyways.

* * *

The first time he manages to walk to the telephone, he does just what he promised, and he calls his mother.

She’s so happy she cries a little, but she wouldn’t admit it if he asked her. She’s just happy - and he’s glad, suddenly, just for her sake that he didn’t die.

“Ma, I’m alright, really. Just - scarred up from the burns and got a bad leg, but it’s nothing. Once I can get home, I’ll get home, and I’ll go back to work.”

“You should come home now and let me take care of you.”

“It’s probably just another couple of weeks til they let me out anyways. Now that I can walk I’m mostly healed up.”

“I’m glad for that. Tell all the nurses your mother says thank you. And you - you’ve been over there all by yourself?”

“Ma - I don’t wanna have to talk about that, it’s not anybody’s fault-”

“I just wanted to make sure you didn’t happen to meet some nice Jewish girl in the hospital, that’s all, I’m just checking-”

“Ma-”

“I know, I know, you’re probably never gonna meet a nice Jewish girl, but I can have dreams of my own, Donny. Just come home. It’ll be good just to have you home.”

“Alright, Ma. Love you.”

“Love you, too, Donny.”

Donny hangs up the phone and then knocks his head against the wall next to where it hangs. Worst part about living through the war is that sooner or later, his mother’s still going to expect him to get married.

When he lifts his head up again, he looks at the phone. It’s possible he could try and get in touch with an operator in Maynardville - see if anyone could get him information, and get him Aldo’s phone number. Maybe he could call in case his letter didn’t get there. But what if Aldo doesn’t have a phone? What if he doesn’t really have a place of his own, or he didn’t go back there after all?

What if he and Utivich went somewhere together?

Donny shakes his head, then picks his crutches back up and makes his way back to his bed, slowly but steadily. He doesn’t want an answer to any of that just yet. For now he can just set his sights on getting back to the States, and getting back to his Ma. Maybe after that he’ll see if he can call Aldo.

* * *

All the Italian Donny ever learned he mostly learned around the neighborhood in Boston. Italian families that ran the local restaurants and owned their own businesses, guys that Donny had worked for or with at one time or another as he bounced from job to job.

He picked up enough for a menu, and just a little bit more, enough for the basic stuff. Curse words and dirty talk from the jokes guys made working in stockrooms.

Mainly, he knew enough and heard it enough to recognize it - which is how he did it when the Basterds were trying to get some supplies off a guy and the guy just didn’t seem to speak any fucking French or German.

Donny listened to his babbling, his insistent and emphatic protests as he waved his hands in the air and shook his head, either trying to tell them outright no or just that he didn’t understand - and Donny stopped everyone.

“Wait - that’s Italian. I don’t know much, though, anybody speak any Italian?”

Aldo stepped forward with a smile. “I do.”

Of course, he spoke it still thick with his Tennessee drawl, and Donny listened to the end result with a kind of fascination - but the Italian seemed to understand nonetheless, and Aldo was able to stumble his way through a conversation and get them some fucking food and supplies, finally.

As they made their way towards camp for the night, Donny had taken up the back, waiting for Lieutenant Raine and falling in right beside him.

“Why the fuck do you speak Italian?”

One corner of Aldo’s mouth tipped up. “I’m a man of many talents, Donowitz.”

“Yeah, no kidding.”

Aldo flicked his eyes up at the rest of the group, watching everyone walk ahead of them. He slowed his pace, putting some more space between them and the rest of the Basterds, and then turned back to Donny. “Tell you what, Sergeant, we both make it through all this, you buy me a drink sometime, maybe I’ll tell you.”

“Buy you a drink?”

“That’s right.”

“Sure, Lieutenant.” Donny flashed him a smile. “It’s a date.”

“I just guess it might be,” Aldo said, and then picked up his pace again to overtake the rest of the group.

Donny kept his place at the back, watching Aldo weave his way through the rest of the men to take up the lead, right where he belonged. For just a moment, he let himself think about the idea of getting to go home and seeing Lieutenant Raine there. Going out for a drink - doing the whole thing properly, instead of just fooling around in the woods or in a barn where the others wouldn’t hear them. The idea that there might be something to all this other than just convenience.

But it had only been a moment.

* * *

It’s two more weeks before they tell Donny he can go home - and when he admits to the nurses he doesn’t have money or much of anything, a couple of the nicer ones pitch in to get him a ticket on a boat back home.

He hugs them all goodbye, gets a few kisses on the cheek for his trouble, and cracks a couple of dirty jokes just to see them laugh one more time.

One of the nurses, Louise, had told him she was a lesbian the first time he ever cracked a joke and she thought he was flirting. Since then, Donny’s listened to stories about her girlfriend and her older stories about ladies’ bars before the war. For obvious reasons, she’s been his favorite nurse - and now, as he tells her goodbye, she slips him a little piece of paper with her address on it, kisses both his cheeks, and makes him promise to write.

“If you ever need somewhere to stay in France, just say the word - Alma and I will have you. If you ever need anywhere at all, you can always come and stay with us.”

“Thanks, Lou.”

She smiles at him, goes a little watery in the eyes, and squeezes his hand so hard it hurts a little before she turns around and leaves.

France is France, of course, but Lou is one of the first people Donny’s ever known who’s made a nice little life for herself really living with her girlfriend. People in the hospital called them roommates, but some people obviously knew the score, and Lou wasn’t exactly hiding it.

Donny’d never tried anything like that. He’d heard stories, of course, knew that some people did it, settled down like that even though they’d never be able to get married - but he’d never really seen it as something he’d end up doing.

Maybe for a long time he just never thought he’d live that long - or that he’d never really meet anybody.

There’s only one person he’s ever really had any fleeting thought about having a future with - and under the circumstances, it feels fucking stupid to think about now.

Besides, if anybody would have wanted him before the war, that was one thing - now, though his face still looks just the same, his chest, one arm, and his legs all the way down to his knees are all covered in burn scars. He’s gonna have a limp that’ll probably last him the rest of his life, and he’ll probably never be quite as strong as he was before all that bed rest.

Already, on the boat home, when it’s too rainy and damp, he starts to get aches and pains without having done the kind of work he usually did to earn them. He’s not the same person he was before he left. He’s not even the same person he was when he earned himself the nickname The Bear Jew.

He’s back to being Donny Donowitz - and not even the best version of him.

Feeling sorry for himself won’t get him anywhere, though, and he knows that. He’s still strong enough to work in all the ways that it counts, and he can earn himself and his Ma some money the same way he always used to, and at least a hundred thousand men are probably coming home in even worse shape than he is. He’s got no right to complain.

The boat lands in Boston, and Donny gets his feet back on American soil for the first time in years - and he’s finally made it home.

* * *

After the night on the farm, Aldo had started to assign Donny so their night shifts were back to back - meaning when they switched off, the two of them got just a moment to themselves while everyone else was still sound asleep.

Sometimes it didn’t mean much, just a quiet moment, a nod or a brush of the shoulders as they switched off, if it was an important night, a night in enemy territory or while they knew they were surrounded.

If they both knew they were safe, though, there’d been no sign of anything, sometimes they’d keep each other company for a little while. Aldo broke out a deck of cards sometimes after he found one in a house, and even though a few were missing, there were enough to play poker with, or blackjack.

If watch was set up far enough from the sleeping bags, if they had a fire and everyone was really sound asleep, sometimes they’d even talk. It was rare - and usually still about plans or next steps or fighting strategy or who in the Basterds still had some work to do, but it was still nice in its own kind of way.

One night, though, even after they’d gone over duties for the other Basterds and the next two operations they had on the books, Aldo didn’t get up. He sat there, and the light of the fire flickered over his face, casting the angle of his jaw into shadow while the flames were reflected in his eyes.

“You know, I never learned how to drive in Boston. I never had to,” Donny had said, just to strike up conversation.

Aldo turned, and quirked a smile. “Really? All the shit you’ve done in your life and you don’t know how to drive?”

Donny shrugged. “Like I said, no reason.”

“Guess in a city like that, maybe not. Even if it hadn’t been for the fact that I had to run liquor, having a car out in the middle of goddamn nowhere means something.”

“Like what? That how you tell everybody you’re hot shit?”

Aldo snorted. “Something like that.” He pulled his snuff tin out of his pocket, paused as he looked down at it. “When there’s so much road and nothing around for miles, car means freedom. Means you can leave anytime, leave anything or anyone behind, just get behind the wheel and go wherever the fuck you want.”

The way Aldo talked about it made Donny feel like he could practically feel the wind in his hair. It made the hair stand up on the back of his neck. “Sounds pretty damn interesting when you put it like that.”

“You come to Tennessee, I’ll teach you sometime.” Aldo flashed Donny a smile. “Or at least take you on the the ride of your fuckin’ life, see if that can convince you there’s a reason to learn.”

Aldo never really made any promises - but he’d started to say things like that more and more frequently, just talk about what they might do after the war, bring up the idea that he and Donny might at least see each other again when it was all over. Have a drink - go for a drive, apparently.

It was more than anybody else had ever promised him, and even if Aldo never meant any of it, just him saying it was enough, really - just Donny getting to hear it and pretend sometimes when he laid down to sleep at night was worth something.

* * *

Donny didn’t call or send word soon enough to have his mother meet him at the harbor, so instead he makes the long, slow walk to their old place. He only has a backpack, fortunately - if he really had any luggage, it would probably be tougher with the lingering limp, but since he barely had anything left in France, there’s still not much to carry.

His mother greets him at the door when he knocks by bursting into tears and pulling him down into a hug.

It’s a little painful, actually, but he hugs her back anyways and lets her hold on tight, because she spent at least a month or two thinking he was dead, and he probably owes her a decent hug at the very least.

The apartment looks almost just the same. Apparently his mother started work at a shop around the corner to keep everything, that and Donny’s army pension had kept her from getting kicked out of the place. Neighbors had probably helped too - Donny’s grateful for them. Maybe he’ll tell them so, assuming he sees them around.

Ma cooks that night, a nice big dinner that’s probably more food than Donny’s seen in one place since he left for the war.

She fusses over him, insists he take more than one helping, and shoos him away before he can help her clean up, insisting he go to bed early.

The once-familiar sounds of the city are somehow too loud and too quiet all at once. Quieter by a long shot than the fucking hospital - but too many noises compared to the years he spent sleeping in the rough, twitching at every sound because it might mean death, or at the very least Germans.

He lays awake for a long time, staring at the ceiling. He thinks about Aldo and Utivich - and eventually he even wonders, just for a moment, where his baseball bat ever ended up.

* * *

He still remembers, vividly, how he ended up with the baseball bat.

It was after they’d started the Basterds, after Aldo had made him a Sergeant because he’d been there at the beginning. Aldo had told him privately, before all the others had heard the speech, about the plan with the scalps.

Donny got a different version of it, though.

“I want to make sure my men take care and pride in their killing - that they do the job well and they know it gets done. But somehow, Donowitz, I feel like you don’t need any encouragement for that to be true. So if you had your choice of how to kill a Nazi, how would you do it?”

It was instinct, more than anything. The first thing that came to mind, because a gun was too fast and he didn’t trust himself with the kind of knife Aldo always carried.

Donny’s hands weren’t always steady enough for knife work when he got keyed up in a fight - but they were strong.

“I’d bash their fucking brains in with a baseball bat.”

The smile Aldo gave him was fond and dangerous all at once, with a clear sharp edge. It was the same look he got every time Donny broke out the bat, too, but Donny wouldn’t notice that until a year or two down the line. “Well,” Aldo said. “You know, I think that can be arranged, Sergeant.”

So when the bat showed up, maybe it was technically army issued - but really, Aldo got him the bat, just to watch him swing it.

* * *

After a day or two of rest, Donny goes out and gets himself a job at the butcher’s shop around the corner, because Al still runs it and still remembers him. Nobody really asks about what he did during the war, and Donny doesn’t offer, and he falls back into the same kind of routine he had before he ever left.

He goes to work, he doesn’t talk much, he comes home, he helps his Ma - just sometimes there’s a few more aches and pains when he has to load boxes in and out of the shop.

After a couple of days, his Ma finally really talks to him at dinner about something other than how happy she is to have him back.

“You know, when they told me you were dead, it was a letter from the army. But after that, someone stopped by. He gave me some of your things. Not much - just little things. He was a nice young man.”

Donny looks up, fork still dangling from his hand, and his food falls back onto his plate. “Did he say his name or anything?”

“Something strange, I don’t remember. He had an accent, I think he must have been from down South somewhere.”

“Was it Aldo? Aldo Raine?”

His mother squints, then nods. “Mm, sounds right. Why?”

“Well - he was my Lieutenant. He didn’t - leave a number or an address or anything, did he? Just to get in touch, just an offer if you needed something-”

“If he did, it’s probably with the things he left. They should still be in your room, in the closet, I couldn’t-” She pauses, obviously thinking about the long stretch of time when she’d thought he was dead. Donny reaches over and pats her hand. “I didn’t know what to do with any of it, at first. If he’d come by before we sat Shiva maybe I would have used some of it, but it was after all that by the time he came around.”

“Right, yeah, I’ll - do you mind if I go look?”

“Finish your dinner first, Donny, you’re not an animal.”

Donny sighs, huffing out through his nose.

After just a moment, his mother starts again. “Were the two of you… friends? Over there? It seemed like he went out of his way to pay me a visit. Keep your things like that, make sure I got them.”

“We were a small bunch of guys, maybe he did it for everybody,” Donny tells her, a flush creeping up the back of his neck.

“Donny…” She sighs, then pulls her napkin out of her lap and sets it on the table. “It’s my job as your mother to give you a hard time about getting married, finding a nice girl, but you’re getting old enough and I have enough eyes to know it’s probably not gonna happen. It’s nice to have you home, and I missed you - but you know most of the other boys in the neighborhood left home a long time ago. And I thought maybe you would, too. Find a - roommate, or something.”

“Ma-”

“Let me finish. You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to. And if you want, we can pretend I don’t know after we’re done here but - whoever he was, Donny, he cares about you. You should at least make sure he knows you’re alive.”

It’s a shock to find out that his mother knows more than Donny ever thought - but then again, he respects her enough to know she’s smart. Even if she’s still probably wrong about Lieutenant Raine. “I wrote him a letter from France,” he tells her, poking at his food again. “But I don’t know how to get in touch, or if he got it. Maybe he did. Just because he came to see you doesn’t mean it makes a difference that I made it home, Ma. Things are - different now the war’s over. It’s not the same.”

“Maybe you’re right. I wouldn’t know. But - whether it’s him or somebody else, maybe try to find yourself some happiness, Donny? Not just a bunch of fights in alleyways?”

Donny flushes and ducks his head. “I’ll try, Ma.”

He rushes through the rest of dinner, and cleans up, because he’s run out his welcome on getting out of chores because he just got home.

Once it’s finished, though, he rushes to his room, and the things at the bottom of his closet.

Some of his things are there. His medals, a letter from his mother that he kept in his pockets most of the way through Europe, which explains how Aldo had gotten the address - though he probably could have gotten it from the army, too.

Underneath everything else, there’s a little scrap of paper, almost like an afterthought, with  _ Aldo Raine  _ scribbled on it, with a phone number and an address.

Aldo really did leave his mother a way to get in touch in case she needed anything.

Donny runs his fingers over the pencil, and the graphite smudges just a little under his touch. He drops the little piece of paper like it burned him, and then drops his head forward into his hands. “Oh, fuck me sideways,” he mutters out loud.

* * *

One of those nights by a fire, Aldo had struck up a conversation with Donny almost like a continuation of the one they’d had so briefly in the barn.

“You said once you’d go home to your Ma after the war. It just the two of y’all?”

Donny hummed and poked at the fire, keeping it burning. “Yeah. She’s the only family I’ve got. I send her all my army money, help make sure she’s alright. She’s not sick or nothing but I always helped her out when I was at home, too. I can only do so much from here. I write her sometimes.” He turned to glance at Aldo. “You still got any family?”

“No, none to speak of. It’s a big family, but the older I got the less they wanted to do with me. Once my daddy died I think it gave the rest of them an excuse. Haven’t heard a thing in years.”

“You miss it? Having a lot of family around?”

“Not particularly. I get by.”

The conversation could have ended there - but Donny kept going. “I think my Ma always wanted a big family, but she never had the luck. Got stuck with just me, and I’m not the kind to give her a bunch of grandkids or nothing.”

Aldo laughed. “No kiddin’.”

“She’s good, though. I’m lucky to have her.” Donny paused, then spoke again, though he wasn’t sure why. “I think she’d like you.”

Though he kept smiling, Aldo shook his head. “I don’t know about that.”

“My ma took care of me alright. She’s tough stuff.”

“I guess she must be.” Aldo sighed, and threw some more kindling on the fire. “She sounds nice, Donny.”

“I don’t know about nice. But she’s good. She’s a good woman.”

Maybe that was why Aldo had stopped in. Maybe after all that, he’d just wanted to meet her.

* * *

For three days, Donny carries the little scrap of paper in his shirt pocket and feels like it’s burning a hole in his chest. If he calls, Aldo might not answer. If he goes all the way to Tennessee, he might not even be home. He could have moved - but then why leave this address with Donny’s ma? Obviously he wasn’t planning to move.

Still, if Aldo does answer what the fuck does Donny say? Surprise? I tried to write you from France but I guess I don’t know if you got it, sorry if you didn’t answer on purpose and now I’m alive you want me to fuck back off.

Maybe all those promises were words between two men who thought they’d be dead. Maybe those words were only ever meant for late night firesides in the French countryside in between days filled with bloodshed. Maybe the whole thing was fucked before it ever started, and both of them meant it to be.

The fourth day is a Saturday, and Donny doesn’t have work - so when the knock comes at the door, and his mother is busy cleaning in the kitchen, he shouts out, “I’ll get it, Ma!”

But there, on the other side of the door, is Aldo Raine.

“Lieutenant?” is the first thing that falls, dumb, from Donny’s big fucking mouth.

Aldo blinks at him. “Well on the one hand they made me a Major when they gave me the medal, but on the other hand, I’ve been discharged so maybe it’s nothing now.”

“You got the letter?”

He nods. “Called the hospital and they told me they sent you home. Apparently the post office held it so - took so long for me to get it that you were long gone. Thought I’d just show up and see if they told me right.” Aldo looks him over, head to toe, and nods. “Guess they did. Mind if I come in?”

“No, no, come on, uh - Ma, it’s - Major Raine. Aldo.”

His mother ducks out of the kitchen and smiles at them. “Well it’s nice to have you back now that Donny’s here, too. But you know what, Donny, I was just about to go down the street and get some things for dinner tonight. You two catch up all you want - when I get back I’ll make dinner. Major, stay as long as you want, we’ve got the room if you need a place to stay for the night, since you’re in town.”

Aldo takes his hat off and ducks his head in her direction. “Much obliged, Mrs. Donowitz.”

“Ma, are you sure-”

“Donny, you stay here. I can carry two bags of groceries without your help.”

He knows why she’s leaving, and he knows that there’s probably a flush creeping up the back of his neck as a result - but without her, he’s got no excuses, either. No defense against the conversation he’s been thinking about and fucking terrified of for days.

She closes the door behind her, and he hears her footsteps as she makes her way down the stairs.

Slowly, he limps over into the living room and makes his way to the sofa, gesturing Aldo towards the other empty seats.

“Well, uh, make yourself at home. Ma said you came by once before.”

Aldo sits down on the other end of the sofa instead of in a separate chair. He pushes his hair back from his face, neatening it from the mess it was under his hat. “Had some of your things you left in your clothes, thought I’d bring ‘em by. I couldn’t tell her much - but I wanted to do what I could.”

“You must have had a hell of a time, doing a tour like that for all the Basterds.”

“Most of them didn’t have family. Or I didn’t have anything to give them. Or - well. I only did it for you, Donny. Situation’s a little bit different.”

“Right.” Donny nods, and tries to ignore the feeling of his heart hammering in his chest. “Well - sorry for all the trouble. I guess me being alive after all made things sort of a mess.”

Raising his eyebrows, Aldo scoffs. “You think any of this is a mess? That whole operation got fucked beyond all recognition after Landa got his fucking way - and all I got to do was carve a fucking swastika in his head, that fucker’s still out there somewhere, some goddamn house on a beach in the Northeast, probably just wears a lot of hats.”

Donny laughs in spite of himself, thrilled by Aldo’s anger, comforted by the familiar conversation topic. “Well you did what you could. I bet that was your best one, too.”

“You ever see it, you’ll know. Utivich thought it was.” Aldo pulls his old snuff tin from his pocket, and flips it open. “Half of me thinks with you me and Utivich all still around we oughta just go up there and kill the bastard ourselves - but I don’t think the army would look too kindly on it now that we’re home.”

“Guess it’s always an option, if we get bored.” Donny shifts on the couch, moving closer to the center, and closer to Aldo - but not closing the distance completely. “Did you come from Tennessee then? Is that where you’ve been?”

“After me and Utivich got back and got all the goddamn awards out of the way, yeah. Congressional medal of honor that we didn’t even get for killing Nazis - not really, you and Omar did all the work in the end.”

“Oh did we ever. Up on that balcony - I shot the shit out of Hitler. Practically turned his fucking face into pudding, most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.”

Aldo laughs at that - really laughs, and turns to face Donny properly. “Now that’s what I like to hear. That how you didn’t get blown up? You ditched the dynamite to take a more hands on approach?”

“Yeah. I left it downstairs - we didn’t know the theater was gonna go up in flames. Apparently the lady in charge had her own plan. She was Jewish, too, go fucking figure. I got - well I got burned real bad, and I guess when the balcony blew I got my leg broken somehow, but I came out of it pretty clean. I guess I got lucky.”

“Luck might have had something to do with it.”

All caught up on the basics of how they both made it out, silence falls between them. Donny looks over at Aldo, then looks back over at the wall, his eyes following the pattern on the old, faded wallpaper. “Why’d you come all the way out here?”

“You’re the one sent me that letter, Donny.”

“Well, yeah, but - didn’t seem fair to let you think I was dead. Plus with the things the way they were with the army, I figured I should get in touch with you to let them know - but I guess I’m not a deserter if we all got discharged.”

“In their words, our work is no longer necessary,” Aldo tells him, and his tone tells Donny he’s quoting somebody else - some higher up. “I wanted to see for myself you weren’t dead, and I felt like maybe we had some unfinished business. If I’m wrong, you can just tell me so. I’ve been through worse.”

The idea that Aldo would come all the way to Boston just to see him and leave again on Donny’s word makes Donny want to reach out and grab him - but he doesn’t. Not yet. “I guess I owe you a drink, right? Said you’d tell me why you learned Italian.”

“I did say that.” Aldo dusts off his hat and puts it back on, then stands up. “Someplace around here we can go?”

“Yeah. Let me write a note for Ma, tell her we went out.”

Donny makes his way, rough and plodding, over to the table by the door. He scribbles down a note for his mother and puts on his own coat and hat before they duck out. He locks the door behind him, and tries to hide as much of his limp as he can, feeling a little embarrassed and unsteady to have Aldo see him like this when he never planned it.

“There’s a place a couple of blocks away if you wanna be comfortable. If we’re just gonna talk, we can go to the place up the street, I don’t think anybody’ll give us hell.”

“For now we can just go up the street. Might be easier on your leg.”

Donny winces a little, but nods. “Gets worse in cold or damp. I guess they did what they could, but it hurts like a bitch sometimes.”

“You killed Hitler, you could have come out a lot worse - or like we all thought, not come out at all.”

“Guess you’re right.”

When they make it to the bar, they settle in at a corner table, and Aldo gets their drinks. He comes back with a bottle of whiskey and passes Donny a glass.

“So you really want the Italian story, or we come here for something else?”

“Well how long are you staying in Boston?”

“I’m not staying. Maybe a night or two, take your couch if your ma really don’t mind, find myself a room somewhere otherwise, but - don’t think I care much for the city. Little too loud and too crowded for my taste.”

Donny nods, tips his glass back and forth in his hand and then takes a sip. “So you’re just… visiting.”

“I came here to make you an offer.”

Raising his eyebrows, Donny forces himself to focus and put down the glass. “What kinda offer? This have something to do with Landa?”

“It’s not nearly that exciting, Donowitz.” Aldo throws back the rest of his glass and then sets it down on the table, empty. As he speaks, he pours himself another drink. “I got that place out in Tennessee, but it’s a little too big for just one man, turns out. If I wanted to do anything out there, I’d probably need a hand, or - at the very least, after all that time in France, I get a little lonely out there.” He pauses, takes another sip of his drink and sighs. “Utivich offered, I told him to go home. I reckon I was waiting to ask you and just didn’t know it - but if you’re not interested, because of your Ma or just because you wanna be here, I understand. I can go back and ask him, I don’t think I’d be too late.”

“You want me to come back to Tennessee with you?”

Aldo shrugs. “If you want.”

On the surface, Aldo seems calm as ever - but he finishes his glass again, and pours himself another one. Donny’s never seen him drink this much.

“It’s not anything you don’t want it to be, you understand, but I feel like you did good out there in the French countryside, and even with the leg you’re pretty strong. We make a good team. Made you my sergeant for a reason.”

“It is really fucking hard to sleep here now. It’s so loud at night. Makes me jumpy - I forgot. You know when we were out in France, at first it was too quiet, and now this is better than the hospital but it’s still - it’s a lot to get used to.”

“That a yes?”

“Well I gotta talk to my ma but - if you can believe it she told me just a couple of days ago maybe I oughta try leaving home. That she could take care of herself, that she managed while I was gone. So maybe she’s right.”

“She might be.” Aldo finishes off what’s left in his glass, and he doesn’t pour another one. “The Italian story isn’t really that exciting, I feel like you oughta know that up front.”

Donny laughs. “Yeah, so tell me anyways, if I’m gonna buy us a whole fucking bottle of whiskey.”

“Alright. But there’s not much to it. When I was a kid, one of my teachers was Italian - family was anyways, she moved down from New York. What the fuck she was doing out in Tennessee nobody ever told me, but she used to teach us - just phrases, little bits here and there. My daddy heard me say something she taught us one time, smacked me on the jaw so hard he knocked a tooth loose. After that, taught myself as much as I could, just to piss him off. It never came in handy much before the war. Think one time we had a mechanic spoke a little, that was about it.”

It’s one of the longest stories Aldo’s ever told him - and loaded with personal details he never let slip in France. Donny nods, then takes another drink of whiskey. “You know what - I think that was worth it.”

“Well I’m glad somebody does.”

When they make it back, Donny’s ma is already there with dinner on the stove. Aldo makes polite conversation with her, somehow, probably because he was raised in the South, and Donny just sits on the sofa and wonders how he ever got here.

Once the meal is finished, Aldo turns down the couch and goes to get a room, but says he’ll be back in the morning.

Donny can only assume it’s so he has a chance to talk to his mother, alone.

She starts, though.

“You know I stopped by the butcher’s earlier, Al says he’ll be sorry to see you go.”

“What?”

She smiles. “Well I’m assuming he’s not moving in here. He came all the way back to Boston just to see you. The two of you went out for drinks. If I’m wrong it’s easier for you to go back and tell Al something came up, I just told him you were finally moving out.”

Donny blinks at her. “He asked me to go back to Tennessee. I - uh, I think I’m gonna go.”

“Well it’s a little further away than I thought - but you write, and you come home for Hanukkah or if I ask, that’s all I really need you to do.”

Unable to stop himself, Donny stands and limps over to pull her into a hug, tucking her head underneath his chin. “Thank you, Ma.” He ducks down and kisses the top of her head, then pulls her back in.

“Like I said - it’ll be good to know you’re happy. I know things aren’t the same, since you’ve been home, and I know maybe I’m not the person you want to talk to. I’m glad the person you do want to talk to came back.” She pats him on the cheek and then goes back to cleaning up the kitchen.

Donny goes to pack.

* * *

They don’t talk much when Aldo shows up in the morning and Donny’s already got his bags in hand. They look at each other for a moment, and then Aldo takes one of the bags and smiles at him.

Once they’re out to the car, though, and the bags are in the backseat, Aldo starts driving and Donny can’t keep his mouth shut since they’re finally alone.

“You know there was this nurse in France. Everybody called her Lou, she thought I was real funny but uh - she lived with this girl, Alma, they met at a bar before the war, you know, and - well I guess things are different in France. They’d been together a long time. But she - she told me to write and that if I ever came back to France I could stay there. I bet she’d like to meet you.”

“Would she?” Aldo asks - and though he keeps his eyes on the road, there’s a hint of a smile at the corner of his mouth.

“Just - maybe. You know. I told her some things. Nothing specific or anything, just - I told her stories.”

“So the whole time you were gone…”

“Yeah. Yeah. I just - didn’t know what happened with you. If you and Utivich or - maybe even just the whole thing was cause we were all stuck together so long, you know. I remembered all the stuff you said, about driving lessons and all that, but I didn’t want to hold you to something you said when we thought we might not ever make it back.”

Aldo shrugs. “If it weren’t for us all being stuck together, maybe it wouldn’t have happened. But that don’t change the fact that it did - or that I think we might as well give this a shot, see what happens. I never really pictured things like this either, before I met you - if I’m right and that’s what you’re trying to say.”

“Yeah, it is.” Donny looks over at Aldo, then reaches over and pats him on the shoulder. “Hey, pull over a minute. Just - over on the shoulder, just for a second, or that road up there, nobody’ll see us.”

“Donny-”

“Just for a second.”

Aldo pulls the car over, his arm thrown across the back of Donny’s seat, and over Donny’s shoulders.

While they’re idling on the shoulder, Donny checks to make sure there’s nobody coming - but it’s early still, and there’s not a lot of people going from Boston to Tennessee anyways.

He scoots over on the bench seat and ducks his head, pressing his lips against Aldo’s. It’s not much of a kiss, because they’ve got a long drive ahead of them, and they’ve still gotta be careful, but just for a moment, Donny lingers.

As he pulls back, Aldo bites at his lower lip, just briefly, and so they part with a quiet sound, both of them breathing a little heavier.

“Just - hadn’t had a chance to do that. And it’s a long drive,” Donny says, sitting back in his seat and looking back out through the windshield.

“That it is - but you know, there’s nobody around my place for miles, for once in our goddamn lives.”

“You saying we won’t get interrupted finally, or that I can be as loud as I want?”

“Donny it’s a goddamn 15 hour drive on a good day, maybe hold off a little bit.”

Donny throws his head back and laughs - and he catches Aldo’s smile out of the corner of his eye before it falls away.

“Now put on some music or something - find a ballgame if you want, I don’t know.”

While Aldo pulls the car back onto the road, Donny fumbles with the radio dial. “They got baseball in Tennessee?” he asks, half-joking and half-genuine.

“I’ve got no fucking clue - but we’ll figure something out.”

And so they drive - on towards Tennessee, and for lack of a better word, home.

**Author's Note:**

> i started writing this after a recent rewatch because i thought it would be short and then uh. it wasn't! i have no explanation for all the turns this fic but i hope someone enjoys it. 
> 
> this will absolutely be my only fic for this fandom but i write sometimes for other tarantino-verse things and i've posted a once upon a time in hollywood fic, too, if that's your bag. otherwise - if you enjoyed this one while you were just haunting the tag i'd love to hear what you thought!
> 
> thanks for reading either way.


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